“A man should remain on good terms with his wife. This does not mean that he should never cause her pain, but that he should bear any annoyance she causes him, whether by her unreasonableness or ingratitude, patiently. Woman is created weak, and requiring concealment; she should therefore be borne with patiently, and kept secluded. The Prophet said, ‘He who bears the ill-humour of his wife patiently will earn as much merit as Job did by the patient endurance of his trials.’ On his deathbed also he was heard to say, ‘Continue in prayer and treat your wives well, for they are your prisoners.’ “Wise men have said, ‘Consult women, and act the contrary to what they advise.’ In truth there is something perverse in women, and if they are allowed even a little license, they get out of control altogether, and it is difficult to reduce them to order again. In dealing with them one should endeavour to use a mixture of severity and tenderness, with a greater proportion of the latter. The Prophet said, ‘Woman was formed of a crooked rib; if you try to bend her, you will break her; if you leave her alone, she will grow more and more crooked; therefore treat her tenderly.’[69] “The greatest care should be taken to avoid divorce, for, though divorce is permitted, yet God disapproves of it, because the very utterance of the word ‘divorce’ causes a woman pain, and how can it be right to pain any one? When divorce is absolutely necessary, the formula for it should not be repeated thrice all at once, but on three different occasions. A woman should be divorced kindly, not through anger and contempt, and not without a reason. After divorce a man should give his former wife a present, and not tell others that she has been divorced for such and such a fault. Of a certain man who was instituting divorce proceedings against his wife it is related that people asked him, ‘Why are you divorcing her?’ He answered, ‘I do not reveal my wife’s secrets.’ When he had actually divorced her, he was asked again, and said, ‘She is a stranger to me now; I have nothing to do with her private affairs.’” All the relations of life, its pleasures and duties pass under review in books on _ʾAdab_. Every detail of outward conduct is regulated by what is said to have been the practice of the Prophet. How to eat a pomegranate correctly, how to take a bath, how to use the _Miswak_, or tooth-brush, how to behave towards Jews and Christians, and what ornaments are allowed—all this comes under the head of Moslem Ethics. We give the reader one striking example.